Marketing Makeover | Part 3

How do you turn a vaguely interested sign up into a super fan? Heck, how do you even get them on a sales call?

If you caught parts 1 and 2 of my real-life marketing makeover, you’ll know those are the questions our two guinea pigs, Courtney from Vidyard and Annette from Aprimo, have been wrestling with.

You see, I was that vaguely interested sign up. I checked out their websites, I filled in a gazillion forms and then they hit me with their follow up emails.

Both of which…kinda sucked. Sorry, Courtney and Annette!

Last week, we discovered exactly where they were going wrong. Both of these ladies had forgotten one vital part of the marketing puzzle:

The crucial concern

Every time your prospect fills out an online form, they’re executing a moment of commitment. They’re trading data for information and every time they do so, a crucial concern wells up in the back of their mind. And if you want to build trust with your consumers, you have to address this concern head-on.

Addressing the crucial concern: an (almost) perfect example

As it happens, I have the perfect example of how to address this crucial concern. While I was waiting for Annette and Courtney’s updated makeover videos, I got an email from Onye from Zoom. The subject line read, “Can we be friends?” and then the email says, “Ugh, more emails from Zoom? Don’t shoot the messenger! Let me know who I should be in touch with and you never have to hear from me again.”

Boom! He’s immediately addressing my crucial concern — it’s like he’s inside my brain.

It was such a wonderfully crafted email I just had to email him back to ask if he'd ever considered using video when sending emails like that. Here’s his reply (and bonus points to you if you can tell me where he goes wrong here…):

"I actually did, but decided that might not be the best first impression. Nonetheless, I would love to connect with you later this week, or early next week. Can you provide a few times and dates that work for you?"

Did you guess the issue?

Yup, just like Courtney and Annette in part 1 of the Marketing Makeover, he’s trying to rush the relationship and ruining all the trust he built with that first email. And I’m over here rolling my eyes at yet another marketer trying to claw out some time in my calendar!

Back to Courtney and Annette

While I’ve been dealing with Onye from Zoom, Courtney and Annette have been hard at work on their new and improved videos, so let’s see how they’ve done…

You’ll remember from episode 2 that the crucial concern for prospects that have signed up for a free trial of Vidyard or Aprimo is that they’re going to be hit with a hard sell. The big question for Courtney and Annette is whether they’ve managed to address this in their videos.

First up, Courtney’s intro:

“Hey, remember in 2003, when "Love Actually" came out and Rick Grimes showed up at Keira Knightley’s door with cue cards, and it really worked for him? I'm gonna steal that idea real quick. I wanted to say thanks so much for checking out our three minute demos.”

So what do you think? I LOVE Courtney’s creativity here but she still isn’t addressing our crucial concern.

Over to Annette:

“Hi, Andrew. I have a question for you and I'm going to get to that in just a second but first I wanted to tell you who I am. My name is Annette and I'm from Aprimo. My job isn't to sell you anything. In fact, my job is to simply help you find the best solution for your specific needs, when it comes to optimizing your marketing process, grand assets, digital files, and content resources.”

Ah-ha! Annette’s got it! Not only has she immediately addressed the crucial concern by reassuring us that she’s not here to push a sale, she’s also using a fabulous little psychological phenomenon to make sure we keep watching until the end.

The power of the unanswered question

“I have a question for you and I'm going to get to that in just a second.”

This has to be the most important sentence in Annette’s entire video. Because the moment you hear something like that, a door opens up inside your brain. It creates a curiosity gap: a void between what you know and what you want to know. It creates an open loop and, boy, does your brain hate having an open loop!

And Annette has created a beautiful curiosity gap here — we want to know what question she’s going to ask. We want to close that loop by waiting around for the answer.

This is such a simple but effective way to earn your audience’s attention; make them stick around by inviting them to chase answers.

Marketing Makeover: The results

Okay, drum roll, Loyalty Loopers. After 3 episodes, several attempts, and a pinch of psychology, our brave marketing makeover guinea pigs are ready to reveal their final video scripts. So let’s see how they’ve done…

Courtney:

“Hi. Thanks so much for checking out our demos. I have a quick question for you, but before I ask it, I'd like to talk a little bit about myself. So my name is Courtney Christie and I'm on the concierge team here at Vidyard. And what that means is I get to help people every day, find how they can use video, whether it's to convert more leads or scan through the noise. So, the awesome part is I'm not selling, I'm literally just helping you incorporate video into your everyday marketing or sales routine. So, back to my question. Are you using Vidyard free? Let me know in a quick email whether you are or not and don't be shy if you have any questions regarding that. I'm always here to help. Chat soon, hopefully. Bye now.”

Boom, nicely done. All right Annette, it's your turn:

“Hi, Andrew. I have a question for you and I'm going to get to that question in a second, but first I want to introduce myself. My name is Annette and I'm with Aprimo. Don't worry, I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm actually the individual that received your request to learn more about us and our Aprimo DAM capabilities. So my job is to actually help you, the best way that I can. Now that I got that out of the way, my question for you, Andrew is, does your organization have a DAM currently in place, and if not, how are you guys managing everything today? So just give me a reply back and you can even ask me any additional questions as well. That way I can further assist you in your research journey, finding the best digital asset management platform, for your organization’s need. Again, thank you for reaching out to Aprimo, and I'm looking forward to helping you with your request. Let's connect soon.”

The verdict…

I’m super proud of them both. Their original emails were rushed, predictable, and impersonal. The overall experience was disjointed and really didn’t encourage anyone to schedule a call with them.

Now, they’re both using a simple curiosity gap to earn our attention AND they’re addressing the crucial concern right there in the intro so prospects know they don’t need to worry about winding up on another annoying sales call.

But that’s just my opinion. What I really want to know is what you guys think about the updated video scripts. Are they better? Worse? What would you have done differently? Tell me what you think in the comments below. Oh, and if you want to see more marketing makeovers, let me know — I had a blast with Courtney and Annette and I’d love to do more!

A very special thanks to the gang at Vidyard for making these videos possible. Full disclosure, I use Vidyard every single day. It's a wonderful tool, and I recommend you give it a try.

Don’t miss next week’s episode of The Loyalty Loop when we’re going to revisit my search for a brand new bank. We’ll look at why switching banks is such a huge pain in the ass and how banks could shake things up and make the customer experience a million times better than it is right now.

If you don't want to miss that episode, subscribe right now. You'll get every episode of the Loyalty Loop one day before everybody else in the world and you also get some special bonus stuff from me, including early access to my book.

You might also like:

• Marketing Makeover | Part 1
• Marketing Makeover | Part 2